LSE-PKU Summer School 2018 A Complex Society: Social Issues and Social Policy in China Course Outline Instructor Prof. Yuegen Xiong, Professor and director, The Centre for Social Policy Research (CSPR), Department of Sociology, Peking University Email: yxiong@pku.edu.cn Phone: 010-62766052 (Office) Course Description and Objectives Today we live in a globalized world where is full of opportunities and challenges derived from unthinkable political, economic and societal changes. As China has surfaced as an economic giant in the context of globalization, how this post-socialist country will adjust itself to a profoundly-changed society and strategically respond to the growing social tensions and diverse needs remains appealing. In the advanced industrialized democracies, social policy is widely adopted by government to address social issues, such as poverty, health inequality, ageing, unemployment and housing shortage. In China, social policy didn t exist as an independent policy arena in the period of planned economy. The economic reform and openness started in the late 1970s created massive impact on social fabric and the trajectories of social welfare and social protection development. As the process of market economy and social transition was accelerated, China has encountered a series of daunting challenge in keeping balance between economic growth and social stability. Although economic growth was seemingly kept as a rare primary source of maintaining its institutional legacy, poverty and income gap, rural migrants and conflicting cadre-civilian relations, inadequate health
infrastructure and health inequality, declining fertility and rapid population ageing in an absence of workable pension system have made the contour of modernizing its social welfare system and implementing social policy gradually clear and desirable in the context of globalization. The past decade witnessed an apparent progress of social policy intervention, however, institutional constraints and contained effects in the domain of social policy has ostensibly marked China s soft power deficit as a deeper problem. In November, 2012, China has smoothly completed its once-a-decade leadership transition at the 18th National Party s Congress. For the new generation of Chinese leaders, strengthening institutional design and effectively implementing its long-term strategy of reform (including political reform) becomes a must for realizing a comprehensive well-off society around 2020. The two significant events, the 19 th National Party s Congress in October, 2017 and the first meeting of the Third Plenum of 19 th CCP Congress in February, 2018 had marked a new chapter of China s new socioeconomic strategies and ideas of governance toward prosperity and harmony in terms of a new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics. The Spring of 2018 will definitely create a window of observation and reflection for China study experts to re-examine how economic and social policies had been integrated with its implementation of 13 th Five-Year Plan toward the ultimate goal of full modernization. In particular, how local government legitimizes its policy implementation under the circumstance of economic slowing-down and social expectations surge. After the Chinese Communist Party hold its 19 th National Party s Congress in Beijing, the country has not only witnessed an unprecedented powerful leader, but also seen the enormous changes of governance in many aspects. This course is mainly designed to meet academic interests of undergraduate and postgraduate-level students and the professionals who are willing to embark an intellectual journey with the course lecturer in probing and examining the complex relationship between social issues and social policy responses in contemporary China. The main objectives of this course are: First, describe and discuss major challenges to social development in China in the context of economic slowing-down and re-adjustment Second, interpret and argue on different theoretical lens of understanding the formation of China s pathways in social policymaking and implementation Third, analyze and explain the newly-emerged social risks, social issues and social policy responses in China Fourth, elaborate and reflect on the future direction of social change and social policy in China.
Session Content 1. Introduction: Ideas of welfare and the evolution of social policy in contemporary Chinese society 2. Social policy-making within the Party-State and the formation of the stability-maintenance-regime: Theoretical interpretations 3. Challenges to social development in China: The Chinese dream agenda and beyond 4. Sleeping with the enemy and rebuilding the ship at sea: Reconsidering the state-ngos relationship in China 5. Poverty reduction and the national development strategy in China: The new poverty alleviation scheme in rural areas as an example 6. The urban drifters as the dream-makers: Migrant workers and social inclusion in China 7. From me to you : Population ageing and pension reform in China 8. Shortage of quality health care and a persistent system of health administration: Health care reform in China 9. Tomorrow never knows : Happiness, risks and social policy development in China in future 10. Conclusion and summary: Making sense of social policy in a complex society Course Assessment Mid-course paper: 30% Final exam: 70% References Chan, C.K., Ngok, K.L. and Phillips, D. (2008). Social Policy in China Development and well-being. Bristol: the Policy Press. Davis, D. and Wang, F. (eds.) (2008). Creating Wealth and Poverty in Postsocialist China. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Lansdowne, H. and Wu, G. (eds.)(2009). Socialist China, Capitalist China: Social Tension and Political Adaptationunder Economic Globalizatio.,London: Routledge. Li, B.Q. & Piachaud, D. (2004) Poverty and Inequality and Social Policy in
China. November, London School of Economics, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE), CASEpaper87 Lieberthal, K. and Oksenberg, M. 1988. Policy Making in China: Leaders, Structures, and Processes. N.J.: Princeton University Press. Murphy, R. (ed.) (2009) Labour Migration and Social Development in Contemporary China. London: Routledge. Ngok, K.L. and Chan, C.K. (eds.) 2015. China's Social Policy: Transformation and challenges. London: Routledge. Pierson, P.(2004). Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Polanyi, K. (1944). The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston:Beacon Press. Saich, T. (2008). Providing Public Goods in Transitional China. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Shieh, S. and Schwatz, J. (eds.), State and Society: Responses to Social Welfare Needs in China. London: Routledge, 2009. Tay, W.S. and So, A. (eds.) Handbook of Contemporary China. London: World Scientific Publishing. Vogel, E.F. 2013. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Xiong, Y.G. 2012. Social inequality and inclusive growth in China: the significance of social policy in a new era, Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, Vol.20, No.3, pp.277-290. Xiong, Y.G. 2014. " The unbearable heaviness of welfare and the limits of social policy in China: A historical institutional institutionalism ", in S. Kuhnle, K. Pauli and Y. Ren (eds.) Reshaping Welfare Institutions in China and the Nordic Countries. University of Helsinki Press. Zhao, L.T. and Lim, T.S. 2009. China's New Social Policy: Initiatives for a Harmonious Society. Singapore: World Scientific. A Brief Bio of Prof. Yuegen Xiong ( for course website use ) Yuegen Xiong is Professor and Director, The Centre for Social Policy Research (CSPR) in the Department of Sociology at Peking University, China. He is the author of Needs, Reciprocity and Shared Function: Policy and Practice of Elderly Care in Urban China ( Shanghai Renmin Press, 2008 )and Social Policy: Theories and Analytical Approaches ( Renmin University Press, 2009 ). He was the British Academy KC Wong Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford during November 2002- September 2003, the Fellow at the Hanse Institute for Advanced Study (HWK), Delmonhorst, Germany during
December 2003- February 2004 and the JSPS Fellow at the University of Tokyo in October, 2005, Visiting Professor in the Department of Social Sciences & Humanities, Jacobs University Bremen from November, 2015 to December, 2015, Germany. In the past years, he has published extensively in the field of social policy, comparative welfare regimes, social work, NGOs and civil society. He is the editorial member of Asian Social Work and Policy Review (Wiley), Asian Education and Development Studies (Emerald) and the British Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies (UK). He was the faculty of 483 rd Salzburg Global Seminar on Economic Growth and Social Protection in Asia held in Austria during 7 th -12 th November, 2011.